The disclosed system and method relate to dynamic electronic mail (e-mail) content and more particularly to providing e-mails that have their final content determined or rendered after the sending of the e-mail or at the time of opening of the e-mail so that the content displayed therein is timely.
The disclosed systems, methods and graphical user interfaces disclosed herein may be envisioned as extending the functionality of the Dynamic Content Electronic Mail Marketing System and Method, disclosed in pending U.S. application Ser. No. 10/769,095, (published as U.S. Pub. No. 2004/0,215,479 A1). Additionally, the disclosed systems and methods may be implemented in other systems and methods of providing dynamic content e-mail messages with live content.
Since the advent of e-mails and more particularly since the popularity of utilizing e-mails transferred over the interne has increased, advertisers and others have utilized the e-mail media to convey messages and advertising to potential customers. One problem with utilizing e-mail for conveying time sensitive information, such as, for example, notifying a potential customer of a one day sale, advertising a limited inventory item or similar time sensitive matter, is that there is no assurance that the e-mail will be opened by a time such that the information is not irrelevant. For example, an e-mail advertising a price on a limited inventory item which is opened after the entire inventory of the item is sold will not be timely.
E-mail marketers commonly know more than just the content of their messages; frequently they know a considerable amount about demographics and other information regarding recipients of their messages. This demographic and other information may be utilized to prepare targeted e-mail messages for sending only to recipients believed to have an interest in the content contained therein. One key in e-mail marketing success is that the advertisements or other marketing materials that are delivered fit with the expectations or interests of the recipient. Especially when a recipient is a subscriber to a newsletter or to an e-mail marketer's program or system, e-mail marketers seek to avoid abusing the permission granted by or failing to honor the privacy of the subscriber, and providing the subscriber with irrelevant content.
One problem with e-mail advertisement is determining an appropriate pricing scheme for advertisements to be placed in e-mails. Advertisers who place advertisements on web pages are accustomed to pricing schemes which result in them being charged only when there is a possibility that the advertisement has been seen, such as when a user views a web page upon which the advertisement is placed, or when a user has taken some action indicative of a possible interest in the advertisement, such as clicking on a hyperlink in the advertisement displayed on the web page they are viewing. Thus, one common pricing scheme utilized to sell advertising space (inventory) on web pages is based on cost per thousand impressions of the advertising being sold (“CPM”). Typically, each view of a web page upon which the advertisement is displayed is considered an impression in such a pricing scheme. Another common pricing scheme for electronic advertising is to charge based on the number of interactions with an advertisement, such as charging for each click on a hyperlink associated with the advertisement, which is know as cost per click (“CPC”) pricing. In other words an advertiser purchasing advertising space on a web page may pay a given amount for 1000 web page views with their ad present on that page and even higher rates for cost per click CPC or 1000 clicks on their ad. Those skilled in the art will recognize that advertising pricing schemes may be based on more or fewer impressions than the above disclosed one thousand impressions or on more than each single click.
Marketers using e-mail service providers (“ESPs”) are already placing ads in their e-mails today. Entertainment venues, online hotel inventory sellers, travel websites and many other companies whose core business is not advertising are selling ad space in e-mail messages sent to their consumers. Many customers and marketers would appreciate an improved way to monetize their e-mail program. E-mail is trackable and well known methods exist for determining when an e-mail message is delivered, when the e-mail message is opened and/or when some content within the e-mail message is interacted with by a recipient.
Traditionally, ESPs have fixed at the time of sending of e-mails the location of all images to be retrieved in targeted e-mails when they are opened. Thus, what the recipient will see when they open the e-mail message is determined at the time it is sent, not at the time it is opened. Utilizing this traditional method of creating targeted e-mails, if an e-mail message is opened multiple times the same advertising would be displayed each time it is opened, even if it is opened after some time limit for taking advantage of the advertising has expired. As mentioned above, advertising on web pages is sold via models where targeting techniques are used on every web page view or impression, to ensure that the most targeted and relevant ad is presented to the end user when viewing the web page. Also, the ads are traditionally sold based on cost per thousand (“CPM”) to drive the ad dollar spent by the advertiser. Currently, if an advertiser wants to place ads in an e-mail, they have difficulty selling advertising based on CPM impressions because a single e-mail may be opened multiple times.
Advertisers and others sending e-mails to recipients would appreciate a system and method wherein e-mail opens are treated like web page impressions, allowing the e-mail to retrieve the most targeted and relevant advertisement for the recipient. Images contained in the e-mail message can be rendered at the time of open, allowing an ad-server, which may be an in-house ad server of the targeted e-mail server or a third party ad server, to treat e-mail inventory with the same logic that drives online advertising.
Advertisers and others sending e-mails to recipients would appreciate the ability to send e-mail messages that, no matter when the e-mail messages are opened, contain timely content.